


Fixed

by Reignfinite



Series: Hanzo76 Week [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Character Death, Loss, M/M, Soul-Searching, Soulmark AU, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 04:16:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11729313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reignfinite/pseuds/Reignfinite
Summary: Day 4: LossThey fell from the moment they met, never to stand again without the other, never to see the world the same way. They would never cut the bond because they’ve waited for so long, have mourned the false losses, have hoped, have wondered, and have wanted even if only in passing.A very, very late H76 week fic.





	Fixed

Jack Morrison’s soul mark didn’t appear until three months before his eighteenth birthday. It was a simple thing. Two almost-circles, one smaller inside the larger, however both missing a small portion on the bottom. Both had thick strokes at their apexes that dwindled to mere lines as they curved downward. In the middle, was an arrow that pointed upwards. A simple arrow and simple circles. A simple soul mate. The mark was nothing like the complicated blotches or mess of lines that his peers have had. Neither was it a name.

At the time of its appearance, Jack had only thought that his mate must be in the army for he’d already made up his mind about enlisting then, his father standing as his role model. And he’d been too happy to really think of how difficult it would’ve been to have a relationship with another soldier.

In the years that followed its appearance, he often looked back at the dream that accompanied it on the night of its emergence. They say that the soul marks that turn up with dreams were meant either for the more obscure or the best soul bonds. Others said that it was a gift to those who are born without soul marks, so that they may know their other halves have been birthed, and to make their search for each other easier. He didn’t know how to interpret the vision of pink snow and splintered arrow heads, of great roaring beasts and a golden scarf. Whether it meant one or the other, Jack had been naïvely confident that his soul mate would meet him halfway whatever happened to them.

He quickly forgot about his soul mate and the mark when he enlisted for the SEP. Given that the program was taxing on both his mind and his body, Jack hoped it was excusable. When the Omnic Crisis occurred, Jack knew a few more years shouldn’t matter. The fate of the world was in jeopardy after all.

 

Hanzo, on the other hand, was born with his mark. It was a simple little thing. It was a cross not unlike the medical cross, with two thick strokes arching below it, almost encompassing its lower half. That little fact did not matter to the clan however. He was the Shimada heir after all. Powerful families like Shimada did not concur with foolish Fate’s judgment. In order to maintain the power between great families, they needed to intermarry with each other’s.

If someone in the lineage’s soul mate came from an acceptable family—which was a rare occurrence—well and good. Otherwise, a charade took place. Some families went as far as to make it seem that their children found their soul mates. It ensured a seemingly strong partnership that rival clans would think twice to break apart. The Shimada clan had never been like that.

Hanzo’s father and mother weren’t soul mates. They were victims of the traditions of the clan, much like those that came before them. Hanzo saw how they acted differently from the couples who claimed to be fated. He also saw how those couples were driven apart by expectations and miscommunication while his parents continued to stand side by side, no disagreement or misunderstanding in existence between them. Maybe it was the fact that they acted accordingly.

Though not without consequences, they proudly debunked myths about forced mates. They proved that two people could operate just as effectively, if not better, than fated mates. They are not as unified, however that did not matter as Sojirou was the head of the household, therefore its decision-maker as well. They were powerful despite the distance between them. Makoto and Sojirou were influential people on their own; they made a terrifying pair combined. Even Hanzo had yearned for something like that once, his soul mate be damned.

Thus, the tattoo over his mark.

 

After he was promoted to Strike Commander, he had mostly forgotten about searching for his mate. Soul sickness wasn’t to be experienced by the partners who haven’t met yet—it wouldn’t have been fair but they had their own version of it. The later they meet their soul mates, the longer and harder it took for them to adjust to their mates. Jack hadn’t been too worried about it then, even when it was statistically the time when most people met their other halves. His duties held more weight than one still unknown person. It was also during those years that the importance of the soul bond seemed like a mere hitch.

One day, the mark over his heart throbbed dully and seemed lighter, as if fading. This often happened whenever a person’s soul mate experienced loss. Jack worried for the one person in this entire world he was meant to complete. They hadn’t met yet—how could Jack ever hope to give that person comfort? How was he supposed to offer support when he did not even have an inkling of his other half’s name or face?

Furthermore, Jack’s position offered him little time to go about the world, seeking the one person who was fated to give his soul the counterweight it needed, the missing piece. It would have been a lie to say he possessed no envy when he saw Blackwatch agent Gerard Lacroix and Miss Amelie’s linked hands, or felt no loneliness when he heard Ana reprimanding her beloved even through holoscreens.

In those years, he learned to do with what he had, though it would weigh heavily on his conscience for the rest of his life. From childhood, Jack had been taught to respect the soul mark. Lying with those whom he was not fated with broke the value of the mark—Jack hadn’t been too keen to do it. Gabriel was the single force who pushed him past that, to break him out of the supposed cage. The man who bore no mark—presumably because his might have died some time earlier or that person was yet to be born (at this point in a person’s life, the latter seemed impossible. Surely fate wasn’t that cruel).

It was exciting, if Jack were to be honest. The liberty he felt from the binds of predestination seemed to have lifted when he shared breaths with Gabriel, when they found comfort in each other, both growing ever more confident that their soul mates would never find them before death does. They were soldiers first, after all. However, like all forced bonds, it did not end well.

The bond became toxic, unhealthy. Jack often wondered if it had been their persistence to stay together despite their obvious mismatch or the inevitable karmic punishment for daring to contend destiny. Nevertheless, it set in motion the events that led to the incident in Switzerland. Though years before the incident, already many names were embossed in stone, futures shattered, and reputations ruined. Switzerland had only marked the culmination and grand finish.

Jack had never thought fate to be so cruel.

 

It was four years after Hanzo’s fratricidal act when his soul mark faded. He’d been dismantling a faux Shimada subgroup when he felt a pang on the skin over his heart. Inspection of the soul mark occurred a few hours later, after he had cleaned up the mess a sham yakuza group could only cause. His mark seemed so much paler under the light. The mark seemed to erase the tattoo over it as well, leaving a patch of skin in the shape of a cross and two arcing lines. Although it had not disappeared completely yet, Hanzo forced himself not to care too much about what that might mean; still the thought distracted him.

Since the day of his brother’s murder, Hanzo had been fleeing both the law and his overbearing clan. Driven by guilt and wrecked by the turn his path has taken, Hanzo wandered without purpose, acting only when his Shimada pride forced him to defend the name even when it had brought him nothing but pain. The weakened contrast of his soul mark against his skin only added to the bitterness that Hanzo felt.

He let out a toneless self-depreciating laugh at the time, knowing that he deserved to be alone, that he did not have the right to mourn his soul mate because he had been prepared to reject that person on command. “Good riddance.” Long ago, he would have echoed that thought that was merely planted and cultivated in his mind by his elders.

Now, all he could really think to say to the empty air is a desultory “Maybe in the next life.”

The itch on his skin and a slightly darker mark four days later led Hanzo to believe that his mate was not dead, but even that was not enough to force him out of his lonely path. The only reason he had gone about searching for that person was to give an apology and then to disappear before any bond could be forged.

Four months and a much darker mark in, and still Hanzo failed to find the one. Instead, his brother found him. And though Genji’s offer brought him more turmoil than peace, Hanzo decided that it would be best to fix this one burnt bridge first before he came to inevitably sever another.

 

When he did not die in the blast, a part of him felt disappointed. Strangely, despite the aftermath of Gabriel’s destructive anger, despite the fall of everything Jack helped built for most of his life, despite the agonizing mass of pain that his body had become, Jack felt hope and relief bud from inside him. At the moment, it had been obscured by his survival instinct, but once he found stability, Jack’s mind constantly returned to that hope.

A hope he could never name. Could only theorize upon, could only conjure lies about.

The lie he believed in most was that it was the knowledge that his soul mate was still out there, waiting, wanting. Wanting _him_ , a broken man. A ghost, essentially. And as his days crawled towards physical progress, Jack found himself falling for a blurry-faced person like a mateless teenager did in the midst of his mated peers. All this despite the fact that Jack spent his recovery alone for the most part.

The adoration for the ideal returned to him. Instantaneous love, acceptance, understanding, and most of all, forgiveness. If his soul mate rejected him after finding out that he had laid with another, then Jack would accept it, just as he would accept his soul mate if they had done the same. If his soul mate had committed a crime as unforgiveable as murder, Jack really isn’t one to judge. If his soul mate had gone ahead and adopted a child or two without him, then that was fine, too. Fifty-four years of waiting is a long time after all.

At this pathetic point, Jack desired companionship more than anything.

 

Some people claim that upon meeting your soul mate, the world would slow to a stop and everything becomes more colorful and brighter. Others say that something inside you just lights up or starts surging honeyed electricity through you. He remembered Genji once cheerfully say that it may feel like flying. The more grounded people say that their body simply went into overdrive: racing heart, sweating palms, shallow breathing. The more philosophical thinkers argue that the moment of meeting becomes a convergence of their past, present and future selves; that it is the intersection of paths that have always been parallel until then, and would always be a single, conjoined path from then on.

When Hanzo first saw Soldier: 76, he felt like he was drowning.

His dragons began a maelstrom within him, fighting him and guiding him at the same time. His lungs burned and his body became a sluggish, heavy thing. He felt like he had frozen where he stood, bow at the ready, gaze affixed, aim shaky. It was overwhelming and frightening and he’d never felt so _alive_.

In the future, he’d return many times to that moment and wonder if his soul mate ever felt any of things he did. He’d never stop questioning it, no matter how many times he was reassured that the same oppressive shock ran through the soldier, because up until that moment, Hanzo had never seen a man move quite as quickly or shoot quite as accurately.

Maybe the fact that Hanzo had forgotten that he was in the middle of battle had a part in Soldier: 76’s god speed reaction. He jumped down from his perch to assist Genji, who had taken significant damage, before he felt the itchy, tingly crawling of his skin that demanded him to look a certain direction. That was when he saw the figure of the vigilante.

“To your six,” the gruff command was thrown out and in less than a second, an arrow pierced the optic sensor of the omnic that was a breath away from lodging a bullet into Hanzo’s skull.

The rest of the fight became a dizzying cycle of aim-shoot-reload. They fought side by side, Soldier: 76 giving cues and Hanzo following through in between taking down their enemies perched on higher ground. Something resonated between them that made Hanzo perform to the best of his abilities, taking shots that normally he would have reassessed more carefully, maneuvering his body into forgotten forms when their opponents overwhelmed them and they’d had to resort to hand-to-hand to protect the injured cyborg. He didn’t know how long they fought and Hanzo’s worry for Genji’s unresponsive silence grew faster than his fast-approaching fatigue.

And then back-up arrived with an EMP bomb that disabled all of their opponents. The Overwatch members who arrived at the scene treated Soldier: 76 as hostile until Winston turned up to tell them that he was their newest recruit. Hanzo couldn’t help but simultaneously hate and thank the universe for its impeccable timing.

 

Winston and Angela’s knowledge of Jack’s identity underneath the mask made things easier for him to adjust. He was initially introduced as a vigilante recruited to assist them with their goals, but everyone eventually figured out that he had been part of the old Overwatch whenever their supposed interim leader looked at him for guidance, be it an intentional seeking of affirmation or accidental.

Their first impressions of him varied. Some trusted him, some did not. Jack understood his need for isolation and his brevity, with the addition of his passive participation to anything that required socializing (that was not on the battlefield) baffled some of them. However, with time, trust and respect was earned. With the exception of the man named Hanzo.

Jack could still remember the way his body thrummed with unbridled energy when he saw the archer amidst the gunfire, eyes blazing as he frantically provided protection for Genji. He did not know then that they were brothers. Jack merely thought that this man, with whom it seemed Genji has made very close ties with, was the one.

_Finally._

Then he saw the omnics lining up their aims at his soul mate and he was impelled to act. He would not lose this man. Not when they finally found each other.

They fought like a well-oiled machine worked. They stepped around Genji like the sun and the moon danced around the earth, protecting him. The targets that Jack couldn’t reach with his bullets received arrows instead, and the masses that threatened to overwhelm the archer were quickly taken down by Jack. In the few minutes they defended their fallen friend, Jack had never felt more hopeful in his life.

“Jack Morrison,” he said when they were alone and safe. He discarded his mask, finding no use in keeping his identity a secret even when his soul mate deserved so much more.

“Hanzo Shimada.” And the name seemed to unlock a part of him he had never realized was there this whole time. It was like finally breathing air after having spent your whole life lost underwater. But that had been all that occurred before their comms burst with static and commands, and they were forced to see to the problem of the many.

Soul sickness is the condition that physically and emotionally weakens soul mates who deny the bond they share. In all of Jack’s musings of what would happen when he found the one, he had not come to consider that soul sickness may be a possibility. It’d been a lifetime of waiting after all, why else would two strangers deny their fate? Admittedly, he may have been a little too idealistic and hopeful. Even after Switzerland.

It had been understandable at first, when Hanzo chose to stay by Genji’s side in the week he had been out of commission. Jack discovered from Angela that they were brothers. The next two weeks were a blackout between them a swell because of the separate missions they were assigned to. By that time, soul sickness started to affect them.

No amount of biotic grenades could give Jack the healing he needed. He’d become brusque—more so than he usually was—to his team and to poor Winston, who’d been doing nothing but his best as their de facto leader. Even Angela’s boosting beam hadn’t given him the sprightliness he usually felt. Jack only discovered that it was soul sickness when the doctor herself couldn’t find anything wrong with him physically.

Inevitably, his worsening performance brought him to the med bay where an injured Hanzo also resided temporarily. Jack felt like a puppet on a string when he realized it. Soul sickness. Fate’s trump card.

 

“You are my soul mate.” Without hesitation, without question, the words were announced to the two lone occupants of the medical bay. The sheets of one rustled as he sat up, then the other mirrored.

“Yes.” Then silence, the comfortable kind. It was four in the morning and it was dark and neither of them could sleep because of the resonance that thrummed between and within them.

“What took you so long?” This time, it was the vigilante who spoke, his mask nowhere in sight. In the dim light, Hanzo found blue eyes. They shared the gaze before Hanzo looked at his hands with a bowed head.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he merely said.

“I was busy,” Jack replied. “Becoming a poster boy for Overwatch, killing in the name of peace… making mistakes. You?”

“As was I. I let myself be molded into the perfect son. I killed my brother. And I failed to do both.”

“Guess it hasn’t been that different for either of us.”

“Perhaps the difference lies in the value we held for those people, for those titles.”

“Perhaps.” Silence, the heavy kind, then, “Or maybe it’s in the way we’ve come to accept what we did.”

It’s dark. He couldn’t see the judgment in the man’s face, but he could hear it in his voice. The accusation of not having done anything, though unsaid, stung him strongly. Hanzo didn’t know if the sharp look he sent to the other man was visibly received. He made sure it was heard. “What right do you hold to judge me? To judge how I deal with what I’ve done?” He snapped, reacting the only way he knew. “You know nothing of the weight I had to carry, of what I still carry. You do not know what it is like to kill the brother who loved you, who looked up to you, who followed you to his own death.”

“You’re right, Hanzo,” Jack mumbled from his bed and it’s the first time Hanzo has ever heard his name uttered by the man. It sent a ripple of calm throughout his being, dismantling his anger momentarily and leaving him bewildered. And instead of saying anything else, Jack simply lied down again and turned his back to the archer. The simple action left a pang in Hanzo and left him suddenly guilty and mute.

Still neither slept, but neither spoke again.

 

Mending relationships were never Jack’s strong suit. It only made sense that even his predetermined relationship wouldn’t work out. Angela let him go the next morning, though not without commentating on his pale façade. On his way out, he heard that Hanzo still needed a day more at least under observation.

Despite his obvious lack of skill in it, Jack wanted to fix his bond with Hanzo. He initially figured that 24 hours would be enough to plan out what to say or do, but when he hit his twenty-one-hour mark, he was still stuck with the same wall that hit him in the first ten minutes. Out of desperation, he sought out Angela and pulled her in a corner with enough privacy and some distance from the infirmary.

He told her everything about Hanzo, his voice becoming thicker and his pauses becoming longer as his desperation grew. Saying all his thoughts and emotions out loud gave them weight, made them real. Jack hadn’t realized how desperate he sounded till then.

“Oh, Jack,” were the first words Angela said, soaked in empathy and dripping with almost-pity. Understandable, Jack thought. Who wouldn’t pity this old man who could not do any of the things that mattered right? Why did he ever think to ask for help?

“He’s my soul mate, Angela…” he repeated to her for the fourth time, head bowed, tears pooling in his eyes and blurring his world into color. “Even though I don’t know him, I can’t lose him. I wouldn’t be able to live with it.” …whether he wanted to or not.

 

The man who knocked at the door of Hanzo’s room on the day of his release looked as broken as the archer felt. Perhaps even worse.

They said nothing. Hanzo simply stepped aside and Jack inside. They sat in front of each other, Jack on the bed and Hanzo on a chair. Jack removed his mask. Hanzo set his weapons and cleaning materials aside.

Both knew what the right thing to do was. There would be no use denying or rejecting each other. Switzerland was Jack’s reminder, and Hanzo’s was his ancestry. They both knew of what soul sickness could do and what it has done to them. Neither wanted to see it cause further harm.

However, above all, they both felt the pull to each other, as if this whole time they were undernourished saplings just now finding the light. They fell from the moment they met, never to stand again without the other, never to see the world the same way. They would never cut the bond because they’ve waited for so long, have mourned the false losses, have hoped, have wondered, have wanted even if only in passing.

Yet so much still stood between them. But that could be fixed with a simple thing. They began with “I’m sorry.”

They made no excuses, but they offered explanations. It hadn’t been easy talking, but Hanzo discovered that his accusations earlier reflected hypocrisy. Jack knew of sacrifice, had lived and breathed it all his life. He knew of loss of people who respected him, who followed him to their deaths too, of losing more than one bond brother even. He knew of responsibility and obligation, of failure and success, of the weight all those carried and the consequences that could follow.

For most of the night, they laid on Hanzo’s bed, staring at the ceiling, backs pressed flat against the mattress, and elbows barely touching. And they just talked. It was a night that stretched on, full of truths and uncertainties and regret. Listening to Jack felt like finding a kindred soul whose life paralleled his yet it reflected a different world entirely. He grew up in a rich, beautiful land that was vastly different from Hanzo’s. He joined the military because his father wished him to. He became impatient, laid with another and regretted everything that came after.

The longer Hanzo listened to Jack’s stories, the more of what wasn’t said he heard. The memory of Jack’s home existed in only his mind now. Jack did not blame his father for choosing his life for him; it’d been a good one for the most part. Jack spent his nights with Gabriel in fear of dying without having felt a modicum of what the luckier people have.

The last detail did not anger Hanzo. He suspected that he might have done the same had his circumstances been less dire. He did not feel cheated either. He’d done worse. He killed his brother.

And then Jack stopped and it was his turn to speak.

He gave Jack his story, shared his regrets, offered his mistakes, admitted his inadequacies. Jack listened in much the same fashion as Hanzo did. Then, finally,

“I have guardian spirits that reside in me…”

In all the time they spoke, they watched each other from the corners of their eyes. This time, Jack turned his head to look at Hanzo. “Guardian spirits?”

“Dragons.”

“Dragons…?” A pause. “Like Genji’s.”

“Very much so, yes.”

“And you have more than one.”

“I have two. It was the reason why the clan deemed me so special.” A scoff. “Look where their special child brought them.”

“You have to stop doing that.” It was Hanzo’s turn to turn his head. He met Jack’s eyes. Blue. Like the midday sky.

“Stop what?” Hanzo asked innocently. It should have felt so strange that they spoke so openly to each other now. Just hours ago, they were complete strangers. Now the air around them was easy, unburdened. In a twisted sense of novelty, Hanzo felt right at home. He wondered if Jack felt the same.

“That self-deprecation. It’s… I understand I do the same… It just gets...”

“Tiresome?”

Hanzo watched Jack hesitate before giving a nod. He unfolded his hands from his chest, let them fall to his sides, let it fall right next to Jack’s. “Yeah… it kind of does.”

“Then you must promise that you avoid it as well,” Hanzo requested. “Your bitterness is very unbecoming of you, Jack Morrison.”

“I can’t promise it will go away tomorrow,” Jack’s fingers found his, “but if you stay with me, Hanzo—”

“Fool.” Hanzo wrapped his own fingers around Jack’s. “Of course I will stay with you.”

A smile slowly graced the old soldier’s features. Hanzo’s very soul seemed to brighten up at the sight. He was drowning again, but this was different. There's too much air and too little gravity. His heart ached in a pleasant way, his pulse quickened, his lips lifted into their own small smile.

 

So they gave in, let fate sweep them away into the little world it prepared for just the two of them.

Their relationship bloomed slowly. They did not take to kissing and touching as quickly as teenagers often did once they found their soul mates. It actually surprised Jack that they were both proceeding on the same slow pace. One would think that this long of a wait and the intensity of their relationship upon contact would’ve been directly proportionate. The longer the wait, the quicker they burned. Maybe it was true all along, what they said of soul mates who met late in life.

They started with talking, with sharing silences. Jack discovered that Hanzo was a very quiet person, that the night they put down all their barriers and let let each other in had been one of the rare times he’d spoken at length. Jack found that Hanzo liked drinking a certain type of tea at a certain time in the day. Hanzo trained every morning and every night for at least an hour and a half. He had a sweet tooth he kept low-key.

Jack in turn revealed a little of himself each time as well. When they found each other in the kitchen in the early mornings, he shared his meager skill with making breakfast. In the quiet days in the base, Jack played his guitar on a roof or by a cliff side, and his soul mate would find him without fail and they would sit side by side listening to the sea and the strings. During the nights, when their dreams provided only restlessness and they instinctually sought each other out, Jack named the stars and told their stories.

 

“You are truly a good man, aren’t you?” Hanzo had asked one day, disbelief painting his face.

Jack made a confused noise. Hanzo walked a full circle around him in the alley while they waited for their signal to go, inspecting him. He started inspecting his partner’s fingers as Jack watched him in utter confusion. “What are you doing?”

Hanzo ignored him at first, knowing that answer the question would seem strange. When he heard Jack whimper—as he was wont to do when Hanzo ignored his fairly idiotic comments sometimes—he relented. “I am looking to see if you have thumbprints,” he said, immediately regretting it and acting upon it. Genji or Jack—not a puzzle as to who, really—must finally, _finally_ be rubbing off on him if he was acting so impulsively. But he had truly felt the need to see if the man were an angel. “Celestial beings do not possess any.”

“Uh… what?” Jack asked then he raised one hand to the shorter man’s forehead, as if to feel for his temperature. Hanzo froze and slowly raised his eyes to meet Jack’s, unimpeded by the visor as they were in an undercover mission. It felt off looking at brighter irises and darker skin. “Are you feeling all right, Hanzo? You’re acting weird,” the older man mumbled, voice laced with genuine worry. “Is it the kebabs?”

In a huff, Hanzo was on defense, projecting indifference to brush off his odd behavior. “I was merely surprised. It is off-putting to see a man dressed like a thug helping old ladies cross the street,” he reasoned and it was a perfectly valid one. Hanzo knew Jack would always lend a helping hand to those who needed it, but this one, as Oxton might say, took the cake.

He never imagined he’d see a brutish man, aggressive red Mohawk, leathers and shredded jeans, spikes and studs, neck and arms full of tattoos, natural facial scars and all, take the risk of crossing the precarious highway of Oasis to escort a snappy, elderly woman. She’d been wary of him at first, of course, but Jack’s infamous sunny smile brightened even her spirits and by the time Jack had returned to Hanzo’s side, the woman was still smiling and waving at him.

It was an unbelievable sight. Had he not known that it was Jack underneath the costume, he would have shaken his head and wondered if the world was to burn any time soon. As Genji would put it, he was shookt. So it shouldn’t have been a surprise Hanzo reacted that way. Anyone else would’ve reacted strangely, surely.

To top it off, it was everything that Hanzo expected Jack would do on a daily basis, if he could. So just witnessing the scene was everything and nothing Hanzo ever expected he’d see in his lifetime. And he laughed uncontrollably then, as his thoughts set in. Jack had fussed over him even more for a bit but waited patiently for Hanzo’s mirth to settle.

“Never change, Jack,” was all Hanzo told him with a soft smile. He would give him a peck, but they were in the belly of a semi-homophobic city and within sight of anybody passing by their alley. “You are a good man. Never change.”

 

For a year and a half their flame continued to burn steadily and discreetly. That is until one day, an encounter with the wild winds of the Reaper threatened to extinguish it. Jack figured that it was inevitable. Gabriel never quit anything. When he wanted to do something, he put his all into accomplishing it. These days, the twisted, undead Gabriel—Reaper only ever wanted to kill Jack.

And never let it be said that Jack hadn’t fought with everything he had. He did. With all of his training as a soldier, with every pump of the SEP in his blood, with every ounce of willpower he could muster, he fought, letting only a single reason drive him to survive: Hanzo.

But then it seemed that it wasn’t enough because whatever drove Reaper to kill was stronger. In an unexpected ambush of a three-man mission, Reaper found his chance and had been a hair’s breadth away from victory. With Jack pinned under a heavy boot, blood pooling around him and his weapon lost in the rubble somewhere. When the old soldier’s eyes threatened to close from too much pain and too little blood, the hooded assassin delivered swift kicks to his gut to bring him back to the moment. He cherished every wince and every groan that the blond released until a string of foreign words filled the air, then light, then darkness.

Jack opened his eyes much later to a solemn, worried gaze directed at him. The furrow between Hanzo’s brows seemed more prominent, the skin beneath his eyes darker, his face pallid. It seemed his soul mate had been waiting for him to awaken. He vaguely wondered how long he’s been unconscious. The archer released a shaky breath of “Jack,” and then he felt his caged hand squeezed tighter between Hanzo’s.

“Hanzo, I’m sorry—”

“No. Do not be,” Hanzo barked, hanging his head, hiding his face in the skin of Jack’s hand. Something wet dripped between their fingers. “I almost lost you. Don’t say that.” Jack’s heart clenched under the mark.

He ran out of things to say so he brought his other hand up to cup Hanzo’s cheek, curled his body closer to the man’s and pulled him close enough to kiss his crown. He felt one of the hands holding his release and cup his bicep. Hanzo raised his head and they shared gazes.

Tears ran down his archer’s cheeks. Jack brushed them away with his thumb. At any other time, this level of touching would have made both of them uneasy, but fate had ways of speeding things up. Jack wished he and Hanzo were free of its timetable, were able to love each other in their own time. He mourned that they weren’t.

That day, he discovered just how dearly Hanzo held him and he relished in the fact that it was more than he thought.

 

The incident with Reaper forced their relationship to a new level. They became a little less restrained, a little more attached. They stole kisses when no one was looking. They cuddled when they met each other in the kitchen during the nights they couldn’t sleep. They shared deeper secrets. They consummated their bond.

It was a matter of time before somebody noticed. It was Miss Song who discovered it first—obviously Genji and Dr. Ziegler were exemptions as they were Hanzo’s and Jack’s confidants respectively. Her reaction was the most unexpected.

She had woken up—or had she, because Hanzo was never sure with the girl; some nights she slept, some nights she stayed up all night playing video games in her room—and drifted into the kitchen to get a glass of milk. At the time, Jack had his head on Hanzo’s lap and they were speaking in hushed tones, when she walked in. The girl froze when she saw them, seemingly unable to register the soft smile she caught on Jack’s unmasked face and Hanzo’s hand in his white locks.

All three of them waited in tense silence, and then, the girl’s lips stretched into a smile, which turned into an exit for a giggling fit. “I knew it,” she managed to say. Jack sighed and sat up just as her smile turned wicked. In a split second, a bright light emitted from the phone in her hand and she was racing away in the next, leaving the two men in quiet defeat and fond amusement.

The unexpected part was that she did not babble away to the rest of the team, as Hanzo had expected her to. She respected their privacy enough to only send them knowing grins at opportune moments. Sometimes she used the picture she took of them to blackmail Jack or Hanzo to allow her to do things or avoid chores, and they would acquiesce if only to indulge her.

It was perhaps Junkrat who found out in the most unfortunate of times, catching Hanzo and Jack ‘grappling’ with each other behind the training building in his quest to relieve himself.

Of course, everybody else had been glad that another pair of listless souls had found each other. In retrospect, after some unsurprised reactions, maybe they hadn’t been so secretive after all. Or maybe there really were some amongst them who had higher perception than others.

But they were received warmly, they were happy together, and they were defeating a little bit of the world’s ‘evil’ every day. There certainly were bad days. Jack hadn’t survived wars without suffering some form of PTSD and Hanzo would be melancholy now and again, but they had each other and they couldn’t ask for more.

 

As if to balance everything out, the slow, steady burn of their relationship received a quick, sudden end. Nobody saw it coming. It all came down after the destruction of Talon. By that point, the world had become aware and Overwatch had been disbanded for the safety of the agents. They still operated in smaller groups, aiding through vigilantism here and there.

Jack returned to Indiana with Hanzo, to familiar but desolate fields. To a quiet, once well-lived house. To their new home.

They hadn’t even spent ten minutes inside it before the sound of a shotgun blast echoed throughout the walls of his childhood home.

Reaper lived despite Talon’s destruction, and he had been waiting for them for petty vengeance. He found his answer in Hanzo after having finally figured out what the man meant to Jack.

When Jack aimed his gun at Reaper’s ghastly form, he found no will to pull the trigger. Only the quick crumbling of his world and the panic that drove him to do something to stop it. The symbol on his chest burned as if he were being branded. His hands shook. His ears rang, his eyes seemed to form tunnel vision. He could only stare at the blood that begun to pool beneath his beloved dragon’s prone form.

He dropped his rifle and to his knees. Did his best to administer first aid, but he could only do so much against a shotgun blast from point blank. He felt the hard metal against the back of his head, still heated after the first shot. Jack continued to work on Hanzo. At some point, a healing kit was thrown to his side. He did not question, only acted. He heard Reaper’s words, meant to cut, meant to provoke, but Jack didn’t stop. Only one thought rang through his mind.

_Hanzo! Hanzo. Hanzo, Hanzo, HanzoHanzoHanzo—_

Then pain. And darkness.

 

When he opened his eyes, everything was still dark, but this was not the black nothingness of the afterlife. It was the dimness of the night sky and the full moon’s glow. And when Jack saw the lifeless body on the floor next to him, he could only stare.

The shirt was ripped open from frantic hands that only worked to heal, but those hands had gone limp, hadn’t they? Exposed to the stale air of the house were the bullets embedded into unprotected tissue. The blood on his skin had dried already. They’d come here without their armor because they thought that their fight was done. It was supposed to be over for them. Jack remembered telling Hanzo that Indiana would be scorching this time of the year, so he did not need to wear his jacket. For some irrational reason, he wondered if the jacket would have made any difference against the buckshot.

But there was something missing. His soul mark. The image of a cross and two inward arcs on Hanzo’s chest. 

It was bare. There was a blank where a tattoo-covered mark should be. Jack moved closer, wishing the darkness was concealing it. Nothing. He touched it, wishing away the dust from the house and the fields that might have been covering his lover’s skin. Nothing. He wiped harder, wishing the skin red and marked and still…

nothing _._

_Hanzo._

Even in his mind, his call seemed so broken. Or had he said that out loud?

The mark on his own chest no longer burned. Was it gone too? Jack did not want to find out.

After hours of sitting there and holding Hanzo’s lifeless form, Jack finally stood. The midday sun was beaming at him when he stepped out of his childhood home, now tainted. Jack remembered vowing vengeance.

And he had certainly attempted to deliver it. Many times. Reaper only continued to slip between his fingers each time, always leaving with the final laugh. Each time, Jack only became more frustrated.

 

Until one day, the other Shimada found him.

He was at the cusp of his sixty-third year then, still spry thanks to the SEP. That did not mean he aged without consequence though. His eyesight grew progressively worse, it was the first thing that started to go. The ache in his bones was deeper. His hands shook now and again.

Jack remembered avoiding Genji when Hanzo’s death had still been fresh, did his best to dodge the ninja no matter how much he hounded Jack. Even after he’d forgiven him, Jack never thought he deserved it. That then was something Jack thought an ironic circumstance—he had been the voice that encouraged Hanzo’s acceptance of Genji before. Now, he was in the same shoes albeit for entirely different reasons.

This time, there was no Hanzo to hold him in the night, to kiss his forehead, to distract him with sensual pleasure, to touch the skin over his heart, to whisper his name in the darkness. Hasn’t been for years.

“He wouldn’t have wanted this.” Genji had cut right to the point once they reached Jack’s sparse little hideout, its dark interior giving no trouble to either of them, the former having dark vision and the latter having his abode memorized. Jack shot him a glare, noting down the sleeker design of Genji’s body. The little dragon wore clothes now, too.

“This is what he would have done had it been me. I wouldn’t want him to do it either but I know he would do this anyway. I’m sure of it,” Jack spat out without thinking. Then quieter, “I need to do this. For him.”

“Is it truly for him? Or is it for you, Jack?” The old soldier’s mind distractedly compared the brothers’ hold on the English language. He subconsciously started thinking how Hanzo had better pronunciation than Genji with the l’s, having learned it at a younger age. A wave of nostalgia surged through him and he turned away from the ninja.

“This is for him and for me. I have to bring justice to his death. I can’t—” Jack swallowed thickly, forcing the tears and the emotions away. “I have to finish this.”

“No, you do not,” Genji mumbled. “Your war is over, Jack. Reaper is gone.”

The words wouldn’t register at first, refused to make sense to Jack. He furrowed his eyebrows and turned to look at Genji.

“Last night, he—It was Jesse who led the team. They’ve been hounding him for years since he left Talon. Last night, Reaper was caught and detained. We were in the works of contacting you. However…” Genji explained, trailing off. Jack wanted to see what emotions he held beneath that mask. “When he attempted to escape, he got a hold of Angela. Jesse had no choice but to put him down.”

“Is Angela all right?”

“Very much so. She wasn’t harmed. On the other hand… At the time of his escape, Winston had been speaking with Reaper, interrogating him and studying him at the same time. Reaper managed to knock him out, but he didn’t sustain any serious injury.”

Jack found himself breathing a sigh of relief for his friends. But this can’t be the end yet, can it? “You said he’s gone. How?” He hated the tired hope in his voice.

There was a pause and Genji shifted. Jack didn’t know what that meant. “I think you should see for yourself.”

 

They protected him when Jack first laid his eyes upon him, ready to kill for the mate he’d lost. When Jack saw the remnants of Reaper, he did not expect his chest to ache in more ways than one. What Genji said was true. Reaper was gone, but Gabriel wasn’t.

He was still the asshole he’d always been, but this was the Gabriel who hadn’t been touched by the shadows of envy and hate. This was the Gabriel before the promotion, before Overwatch. This was the Gabriel of the SEP and then some. This was Jack’s best friend. Or at least, the shadow of him. It was disconcerting to hear apologies spill from lips that had once spouted threats and curses at him. Stranger even to see Gabriel bringing so much effort to support his words, even when he was obviously at death’s door. Jack felt the beginnings of a headache grasping his skull.

When McCree shot him down, it seemed he succeeded in ‘exorcising’ him, too. Most of them were still wary of a ruse from Talon—their reminder in the person of Amelie Lacroix and her successful missions ringing throughout international news. Despite their best efforts, they hadn’t succeeded in weeding out Talon completely. Expecting they could was their mistake.

Angela surmised that Reaper may have intentionally left Talon because he was nearing the end of his rope and didn’t want his end to be at the hands of the organization. He’s been undergoing rapid cell regeneration for a while now. He’d reach his limits sooner or later. She believed Gabriel was urging Reaper through his subconscious to seek Overwatch. McCree refused to believe that Gabriel and Reaper weren’t one person. He insisted it, backing his claims with the skill to deceive he knew Gabriel still possessed. Genji threw in his own ideas and so did Lena and Winston. Jack couldn’t think to say anything because he was at a loss. His head throbbed with pain.

How was he to avenge Hanzo now if Reaper was gone? Admittedly, he wanted to punish Gabriel whether his claims were true or a cover to keep him alive for even a little longer but Gabriel was never the kind of man who’d succumb to using cowardly excuses.

Something was digging its way in or out of his head—he can’t tell. Jack wanted to call Angela’s attention, but she was debating with Genji. Strange, Jack heard himself thinking as he walked out of the room. Since the Recall they’ve never argued. She must really believe Gabriel still breathed.

His feet took him to the holding cell, his hand gripped onto his sidearm. He stepped into the room divided by reinforced glass. Jack’s gaze met black sclera—a permanent side-effect, apparently—and brown irises. His hollow chest seemed ever emptier and his trigger finger itched. He wanted to punish Gabriel and the man seemed just as willing to receive.

The man gave him no greeting when Jack entered. He simply watched as Jack entered the override to the security code for the glass that protected him, and failed. He stayed silent and watched Jack seethe, then he offered the new code. He sat up and pulled the wires and needles off his body and breathed as if in labor as the glass parted from one end of the wall. He lifted his head and awaited his execution.

But a phrase would keep repeating itself in Jack’s head, digging its way out so brutally that his teeth gritted painfully and his knuckles were white as the gun pointed at the figure no longer hooked onto the life-supporting the machines.

_Never change._

It finally broke through his memories, echoing in his head like he was standing in their bathroom with a set of speakers at full volume playing it over and over. His skull continued to tear itself apart. His chest started to do the same.

_Never change._

It wouldn’t solve his problems. It gave no solutions but Jack discovered that it was what kept him human all this time—when he swore his new purpose under the baking sun, while he hunted down Reaper, as he sat mutely in that room full of bickering idiots.

_You are a good man._

And that was what made him drop the gun, what made him turn away from the cold weapon on the floor. What made him crumple into his best friend’s weakened form, careless of whether or not he’ll soon feel the stab of a knife on his back.

Fate might have planned for Gabriel to die out before he could do it. Jack sometimes found himself cursing it, found himself thinking on quiet nights about it. Thinking about Hanzo, sometimes about Gabriel and the defeated look in his eyes. For years and years, he wondered. He suspected he'll continue to until his last day.

Tonight, he’s had the luxury to do so again after a long time of bustling about, but only briefly. He has crops to tend to in the early hours of dawn.

**Author's Note:**

> The mark on Hanzo is the symbol for Jack's Biotic Field. Jack has Hanzo's Sonic Arrow. I've this idea that soul marks should at least look a little bit identical and that's what canon has.  
> Feel free to let me know what you think or point out some grammatical mistakes I might've made. Thank you for reading!


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